Posted
by
timothy
on Saturday November 19, 2011 @09:28AM
from the changing-focus dept.

gManZboy writes "'Sometime early next year, Ford will mail USB sticks to about 250,000 owners of vehicles with its advanced touchscreen control panel. The stick will contain a major upgrade to the software for that screen. With it, Ford breaks the model in which the technology in a car essentially stayed unchanged from assembly line to junk yard' — and Ford becomes a software company. This shift created a hot new tech job at Ford: human-machine interface engineers — people who come from a range of backgrounds, from software development to mechanical engineers, and who can live in the worlds of art and science at once."

That is the part I don't get about TFA. The article blathers on about 'Ford did this' and 'Ford did that' but all the ads I saw talked about how it was MSFT's software, so which is it? Is Ford merely calling up their contact at MSFT and saying "We want this feature and do something about this problem" or did they essentially hire MSFT to just write them the OS and hand them the source code which they are having to add features and fixes in house?

I worked on the Sync project. Part of the reason MSFT was all over the marketing materials is that MS was the one running the campaigns. Ford (and suppliers) did a lot of work, and currently, MS is involved as little as possible. I didn't work on the frontend, but from what I understand, there is an interface. If changes must change anything past the interface, they need to negotiate and pay for changes from MS. Ford does this as little as possible, because they don't want to pay extra... and they don'

Because "ford sync" is actually Microsoft AutoPc from 1999. I had that abortion in my car from clarion. It's buggy, it locks up, voice control barely works, etc...

My nephew bought a new Mustang with it, and when he demoed it I about spit. it's the SAME VOICE and is responding the same way... kind of works. he also mentioned that it stops working at times until he shuts off the car and waits 10 seconds and then restarts it.

Yup. I would hate to tell him how I could lock my version up hard by turning on the ignition, let it boot, then off and on again quickly. I could lock up the autopc so hard it takes a hardware reset and a complete wipe back to factory default to get it working again.

Clarion got pissed when I did that in their demo vehicle at CES in 2000. Yup, same bug that they would not admit exists from a year ago.

It's really pretty disappointing too. From everything I've read, Ford's latest vehicles are, mechanically, really pretty good these days, and a giant improvement over the stuff they were making 10 years ago (compared with the competition). But these stupid Sync and MyTouch systems are completely ruining the whole package. I believe one article I read pointed out that Ford instantly went from leading the initial-quality surveys (thanks to improved mechanicals and quality) to being near the bottom, all bec

It's really pretty disappointing too. From everything I've read, Ford's latest vehicles are, mechanically, really pretty good these days, and a giant improvement over the stuff they were making 10 years ago (compared with the competition). But these stupid Sync and MyTouch systems are completely ruining the whole package. I believe one article I read pointed out that Ford instantly went from leading the initial-quality surveys (thanks to improved mechanicals and quality) to being near the bottom, all because of these stupid touchscreen systems.

I've been looking hard, but they all seem to be crap - maybe not the "crash all the time" kind of crap, but "features circa mid-90" and "UI designed for a blind octopus" kind of crap. Comparing them to any other modern smart device - even, say, Nokia Symbian smartphones - is really sad.

Actually, come to think of it, I don't really need my car to have software on its own, at least not the kind that drives touchscreen. Just let me dock my smartphone, and give it fu

Actually, come to think of it, I don't really need my car to have software on its own, at least not the kind that drives touchscreen. Just let me dock my smartphone, and give it full access to the main screen (and to any secondary screens, if any) and input knobs dedicated to it, as well as the audio system; and read access to all measurement devices in the car. Let software companies write software to handle all that, and let me pick the one I like.

Yes, you basically summed up everything that's wrong with it. My (2011!) VW has an in-dash nav system, and it turned out to be quite a downgrade from my portable Garmin unit in pretty much everything but screen size, and some nice (but tangential) integration with other car functions. The reason why I'm not using Garmin is that it then needs two wires, one to power it, and one to plug into AUX to use the car's sound system - and then I cannot use car's audio system for playback. Which would not be so bad by

Workplaces like that are very common today. They're basically two or three American mechanical engineers, coupled with two or three American software developers. They usually have one good manager a level above them, but then another 15 or so useless managers above that. Then there are the 85 off-shore software developers who collectively are less productive than the two or three American software developers. Aside from getting their own assigned work completed, the American software developers also have to do or fix the work assigned to the off-shore developers. But since this whole off-shoring idea was originated by one of the 15 useless middle managers, it's untouchable and can't just be discarded, although it's a complete waste. Then there's a 'user interface designer' that the software developers have to fight with daily. This poor fellow dropped out of art school and somehow became an expert in UIs. He wants to spend all day adding curved corners and gradients to every part of the UI. Then he decides to drop menu bars, status bars, and other useful UI functionality like that, because it's not 'usable'. The software developers battle with him constantly over his stupid ideas, but this designer is the son of the brother of one of the middle managers, so he stays around although he's a complete waste.

Offshoring, in my experience over the past 3-4 years, has been more trouble than it is worth. The time you spend babysitting these novice developers eats up whatever you "saved" by paying them 1/4 of your local wage, and it drives that project manager absolutely batshit insane. And then it takes them at least twice as long to do anything.

I often get the impression most of these guys can't be bothered to think for themselves. If you tell them "Add a newsletter subscription form", they will add the form, sure, a form that does nothing when you click Submit. It doesn't matter that the same guy has been working on your site for over a year, he's still not going to realize you didn't just want an inert form on your website. If you then say "make it insert into the database", hey great, now it's inserting into the database - in some random table that isn't the subscriptions table! So the net result is you practically write p-code, which they then thinly translate into Java or PHP or whatever.

Some shops can apparently tolerate this level of mediocrity. We've tried offshoring a few times, thinking maybe we had bad luck the first few times... nope, always the same bullshit, so that's why I now know how to configure and script Asterisk IVRs. We wanted to pay someone to just get it done since it was well outside our expertise, but in the end we had to do it over from scratch because all the offshore contractors we hired were complete imbeciles - so much for calling themselves Asterisk experts!

So the net result is you practically write p-code, which they then thinly translate into Java or PHP or whatever.

If you do it a certain way it's not so bad. The good but expensive programmer writes the stuff in precise English. It then gets compiled by some Indians into Java/.Net.

Then the good expensive programmer goes off to write something else while a cheaper bunch of people maintains the crap:).

If you really want to offshore work and not just "compilation", I think you should skip the "cheap" Indians, the Eastern Europeans are much better, they charge more but at least they're better than AIs- you still need to b

No, if you read his comment, he (said he) asked for a form and nothing else. He assumed they were going to guess that he wanted all the other stuff too, they assumed he would be smart enough to ask for exactly what he wanted. "Make a form" != "Make a form that accepts email addresses and submits them to the subscriptions table in the database"

No, he's saying that it's expensive to say exactly what he wants, and that offsets all of the savings. At the end of the day, it's the thinking that's expensive not the typing. If you move the typing to India, but don't move the thinking, then you've hired a typist instead of a programmer.

Most companies love medicore as it had higher profit margins. Even high end companies like Crestron are doing it. I have Crestron gear that is from 10-12 years ago that still runs perfectly. Yet new stuff I install for customers have a 35% failure rate. OR they dont work as reliable as they should. All of crestrons IP enabled WifI touchpanels are complete crap. Even their flagship TPS-6X is not reliable. out of 60 I have installed 30 drop connections or fall over at random times, and all of them hav

It's not that they love mediocre so much as the "15 PHB Managers" mentioned above delude themselves. They've also been taught that the *perception* of quality is more important than the reality. "Sell the sizzle, not the steak," convince the customers that you're the best and there you go.

They honestly don't know any better, because they've never actually built anything. All they know how to do is maximize profits. It's not just the software, either, it's the hardware. In spades. Some salescreature from Asia will waltz in and say, "I can build your gidgle-widgets for fifty cents!"

The PHBs get moist eyed. They exclaim, "we're paying ten times that now!" They pound each other on the back and cry. "FIFTY CENTS? Yay! Halloo," and they sign the deal.

The new stuff arrives and about half of it breaks. About 10% of it doesn't even work out of the box. The PHBs DON'T CARE. The way they look at it, they're saving so much money that, even if they have to replace the customer's unit two or three times, they still come out ahead.

The Internet is changing that, though, because most of us consumer types look at reviews before we buy anything. PHBs *hate* online reviews, because they say, "their stuff may 'sizzle nicely, but the steak itself is awful..."

Offshoring, in my experience over the past 3-4 years, has been more trouble than it is worth.

The work ethics and habits of American workers evolved over the decades when long career in one company with a gold watch and a pension. They work in certain way. The management on its part should be nurturing the workers who have a deep understanding of the company and the customers, especially those workers who cultivate skills that can not be useful seeking employment elsewhere. But management ditched the gold watch, picked up the golden parachute.

The work ethics and the habits of the body-shopping firms evolved in a climate where the relationship is definitely not long term. Both sides knew it. Both sides expected the other side to take maximum advantage of it. American management went in thinking American work ethics in third-world prices. But it is not dealing with employees but intermediate contractors. Even if the body-shopping contractors have long term employees who are loyal, they would be loyal to the contractor, not to the outsourcing companies. Further everyone knows the cluelessness of the middle management. So they found every loop hole in the contract, every stretchable point, every exploitable gap and the body shopping contractors took the American management to the cleaners faster than you can say "aloo gobi, channa masala, butter nan and mango lassi please".

There are world class employees and workers in India. But they (I should say we, because I am a desi who would not work for a desi salary) go up the value chain pretty quickly and are not available for hire at third world prices. What you do get for third world prices are third world class work.

Guess I am one of the lucky ones, I have worked with some great developers whom we farmed work too. We had two on the team over there who were better than most of the developers we had locally. It might depend on the type of work involved, my shop is on mid and larger systems and our requirements are a whole lot stricter so we don't see what others might.

Still to dismiss a whole part of the industry under thinly veiled bigotry does not serve the Slashdot community well. I guess its easy to ride along on the misery train and blame the other guy, but first we must dismiss his ability because if we did not then where we would be.

So guys, cool it with the assertion that off shore developers are not up to speed, the simple fact is there are many good developers in other parts of the world and many are far better than those who whine about them

If the main criteria for hiring is "cheap" and/or the goal is "offload work no one wants to do" and/or you treat the offshore developers as "out of sight, out of mind" and/or as "second class citizens", you may not do so well offshore. However, if you hire to high standards, pay well, and give the offshore teams interesting work, it can be a great source of talent. Obviously remote development shifted 12 hours brings its own challenges and opportunities and that needs to be factored in.

in a few years, these 'noobs' in Mumbai will have experience and it wont take them twice as long to do the work.

their cost of living is not going to magically increase by 50%, but their productivity just might increase that much with experience. especially for niche crap like 'design a custom joomla extension for me'.

Then they tell you that yes, absolutely, they will deliver on time. Then the day before they're supposed to deliver they say actually, it's not done and they'll need more money to complete it. Six months later they send you a complete pile of crap that doesn't work. Then you pay your own developers to rewrite it into a less buggy piece of crap that you can actually ship with only a huge collection of bugs that randomly fsck up your users' day.

people who come from a range of backgrounds, from software development to mechanical engineers, and who can live in the worlds of art and science at once

Then there's a 'user interface designer' that the software developers have to fight with daily. This poor fellow dropped out of art school and somehow became an expert in UIs. He wants to spend all day adding curved corners and gradients to every part of the UI. Then he decides to drop menu bars, status bars, and other useful UI functionality like that, because it's not 'usable'. The software developers battle with him constantly over his stupid ideas, but this designer is the son of the brother of one of the middle managers, so he stays around although he's a complete waste.

I just thought I'd chime in here. Ford has contracted out at least one UI deign project for their new cars to several parallel design firms, including one I work with (sorry NDA prohibits more info). The design is a long term project made up of: one manager below the level of company founder; one graphic designer; and a bunch of usability researchers from disparate backgrounds including: UI design, anthropology, CS, music, and education. They spend most of their time putting together fast and dirty mockups of interfaces and then watching as many people as possible (in the target demographic) try to use them and interviewing those people about the experience.

It is too early to judge the quality of the end product and even if it is excellent who knows if Ford will go forward with it. That said, I thought it important that people know your vision of how UIs are designed does not reflect the reality of my current experience with their "in process" design work.

That was amusing back when Ford has serious quality issues, those days are by and large gone.

As others have mentioned this is probably largely MS' fault for not doing proper QA prior to shipping the product. I'd consider blaming Ford, but let's be honest it's not like MS has any methods in place for requiring QA of products built with their products and they do often times deliberately provide work arounds so that the integrators don't have to.

As they should. Ford is responsible for their brand's reputation in the final analysis. If they buy crap from some third party, they'll be the ones to suffer.Its the same thing with airplanes. When a Boeing or Airbus crashes, nobody remembers that it was a GE engine that blew up.

Guess where Ford's CEO came from? Its sad, because Boeing really needs someone who understands their reputation's problems in the face of outsource vendors.

And if you trust Consumer Reports' methodology, you have less than half a brain.

I don't think you understand the scientific method. A study with methodological flaws that might make it less accurate is still valid information. A scientist tentatively believes whatever the best scientific research has supported. Yes, Consumer Reports has always had significant self selection bias from their survey based studies, but that's still the best data we have.

There are plenty more articles out there explaining the problem.

Studies explaining the problem are no help. Show us valid, large scale studies without the same level of methodological problems. Otherwis

I had an issue upgrading from version 2 (Bridgend Boyo) to the latest, Dagenham Dustbin. Next year's Emphysemic Escort is supposed to fix it, but I suspect I'll be disappointed till Z-Car Zodiac is finally released.

Yes, it is. The lack of specialized hardware or connectors for the upgrade makes the update fully software dependent. And with modern GPS systems, it makes unauthorized tracking (or unconstitutional law enforcement tracking) a personal privacy risk as well. And it creates fascinating tune-up paths for local mechanics with the skills to manipulate the carburetor and automatic transmission settings. The ability to turn off automatic headlight settings in software is invaluable for illegal activities, and to

Seriously... the article writer and story submitter haven't been involved with or paying attention to autos for the past.. oh.. 10+ years?

Most "recalls" anymore are for flashing the software or programming in the ECU, TCM, BCM, or whatever other module. There's a recent 2007-2010 model year Honda recall for transmissions shifting issues that the fix is flashing new programming into the computer. How is that not software?

Heck, GM radios (yes, made by delco or whoever) come with certain features locked out.. to unlock say the input port to work with XM requires plugging it into the shop computer and basically "flipping some bits" in the radio firmware (for lack of better terms) to enable the feature.

There are older recalls that are just software updates.. and these updates are as much software and done by the car manufacturer as the Ford update (IE: Ford doesn't make the radios, other companies do.. some companies that make OEM radios include: Fujitsu Ten (Eclipse), Panasonic, Delco, Alpine, Pioneer, Becker, Kenwood, JVC... most of that short list I typed out also still make or made after market radios at some point.

Isn't the point though that Ford are confident enough in the update process that they can let users do it themselves? A recall implies that there is such a serious issue that a class action law suit would be more expensive than doing the recall?

"Heck, GM radios (yes, made by delco or whoever) come with certain features locked out.. to unlock say the input port to work with XM requires plugging it into the shop computer and basically "flipping some bits" in the radio firmware (for lack of better terms) to enable the feature."

Wrong. to enable XM radio you plug in the Receiver module, on power up you press and hold AUX intil the display flashes. it then detects any new devices and enables them.

They don't plug it into the shop computer unless you call the guy smearing grease and dirt all over the inside of the car a "computer"

It's not even that complicated. Some OEM radios can be "flashed" with update CD-ROMs. This became prevalent about the time that MP3 and satellite radio head units became popular, the car companies knew there were going to be problems and hedged their bets allowing CD updates. They aren't available to the consumer, though, you still need to take it in to the dealership to get the update.

the article is about consumers being mailed USB sticks to reflash the cars by themselves.

i know what youre thinking. 'they cant fuck that up. how can they fuck that up?'

consumers are smart. they can fuck up anything. a-n-y-thing.

the difference here is that Ford is pretending that a 12 year old frying his motherboard while trying to improve his Call of Duty framerate is going to have the same safety and legal consequences as someone half-frying their car's computer systems, leaving it with partially updated

I don't know for Ford, but German automotive manufacturers have dealt with human/machine interfacing for a very long time,and in the process have not focussed on software/screen only, but also added many more interfacing methods like buttons, dials, cameras facing into the car and outside.Names that come to mind are car manufacturers (Audi, BMW, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz) and their suppliers (Continental, Hella, Vector Informatik).

The whole topic has been covered not by computer science or engineers, but very much by information science.So maybe you want to have a look there if you are into this topic.Keywords: driver assistance, hmi, navigation systems

I can't help but think there's a connection between (Ford uses Microsoft software for the car audio & display) and (Ford becomes the first company to issue a patch so users can upgrade their car's software).

I'm pleased that they're paying attention to this; unfortunately I bought a 2011 edge without the fancy screen, so I'm in the-hell-of-1974-bad-stereo-control, to the power of many-more-features-shoehorned-in.

I *am* curious why that touchscreen - which is approximately the size of 2 smartphones - was a $1611 upgrade from the basic controls.

Right now I (apparently) have the software and most of the systems in my car, but imagine trying to run an mp3 player, navigation system, bluetooth phone, etc with THIS (http://image.motortrend.com/f/2008_ford_edge/2308898196140957893+ppromo_mt_large/center_console.jpg) set of controls?

I seriously can't wait until all cars have at least a USB port so I can save/store/communicate things like radio stations, seat preferences, etc all just by uploading my own user config. It'd be even nicer to get diagnostic data from the car that way that's a little more comprehensive than "oh, the red light is on".

I just bought a new car, and it does have more diag data than just a red light. Now, it's "if red light A is lit steadily, and amber light B flashes six times, the airbag is bad. If it flashes 5 times, you are out of gas." Etc. It is confusing.

The problem with the aftermarket stuff now is that it seems like, unlike back in the 90s, no one's using standard DIN-sized components any more, so it's nearly impossible to replace your radio or nav system without it looking like shit.

The problem with the aftermarket stuff now is that it seems like, unlike back in the 90s, no one's using standard DIN-sized components any more, so it's nearly impossible to replace your radio or nav system without it looking like shit.

What are you ever about? Duct tape comes in all sorts of colors these days.

Long ago, decades even, I thought, "well now that portable music players like the walkman are common, at least all new cars will have Aux input ports for sound so we can play any source of music. I mean, it's only a few cents to add a line in to the stereo, they'd be morons not to add it. The problem is, it never happened. Not enough people think about these things when buying a car so manufacturers never did it. Right up though the peak of the iPod era most cars still shipped without an Aux port building a

There is a whole field in industrial psychology which studies the interaction between human and machine in terms of information flow and decision making. These guys and gals work for the CIA, NSA, FAA, NASA, DOD, etc.

The summary is a little misleading. This is not a "major upgrade," it is a complete rewrite of the MyFord Touch system. You see, for their first attempt, Ford decided to outsource the project to a company called BSQUARE who put the UI together using Adobe Flash Lite [tumblr.com]. For some reason, the results were slightly [consumerreports.org] less [autoblog.com] than [nytimes.com] stellar [fordedgeforum.com].

Anyway, Microsoft itself is supposedly helping with the rewrite and Ford is doing the rest in-house (without Flash) so those of us who have been dealing with this awful system for the last year are at least a little hopeful.

It's even more amusing/worse as this update is a rewrite of a rewrite since MyFord was a total rewrite of the original ford sync system which ford originally developed in house with MS. Talk about going full circle

Well Volvo were way ahead with software updates from the late 90's. The S80 was well known for having more computing power than an F15 with over 40 computers. I guess in this context thats why Ford bought them, then sold them off once they learned a few tricks. Unfortunately Ford did not learn how to upgrade a car via the Internet, like with a Volvo when you get it serviced. i.e. when they plug the car in at a dealer, it connects to the factory via the internet. I think a USB stick is just a marketing gimmi

Funny you should mention the F15. Back in the late 1980s I worked in San Diego, and learned that the unmarked building next door was a General Dynamics facility where they wrote the software for the F18. According to them, the F18 had hundreds of VME boards [wikipedia.org], and that 1/2 the cost of the plane was the software. I'm sure that in theory, today most of those VME boards could be replaced by one board with a couple of chips on it (disregarding issues with EMP, etc.) Which raises the question - could a suitabl

What's different here is that Ford is now shipping software to their customers, as opposed to having their customers go back to their favorite garage and have the mechanic plug the car into a magic computer, that often even he has only a faint clue of how it works. This is a significant paradigm shift. It means that Ford will be able to manage more frequent software releases, and maybe start thinking about changing whole features within the lifetime of the car, outside of regular "oh you need to have an inspection after 100 000km" kind of things. So that's cool.

Now the bad part is that your "computer-car" stays proprietary software, and there will probably still be no way in hell that you will be able to modify that software yourself, unless you do some reverse engineering. But it necessarily opens up interesting avenues like running Rockbox [rockbox.org] on your radio receiver, or flashing some controllers with free software for some of us that are into that kind of crazy thing. I say "necessarily" because the car owners do not have the proprietary interfaces to interoperate with the car, which are a significant barrier of entry for us wannabe car hackers.

In order for Ford to deliver that software to joe users, it means it has to lower this barrier of entry, and that can only be a good thing for everyone.

What's different here is that Ford is now shipping software to their customers, as opposed to having their customers go back to their favorite garage and have the mechanic plug the car into a magic computer, that often even he has only a faint clue of how it works. This is a significant paradigm shift. It means that Ford will be able to manage more frequent software releases, and maybe start thinking about changing whole features within the lifetime of the car, outside of regular "oh you need to have an inspection after 100 000km" kind of things. So that's cool.

Iranian tin foil hat: All the pretty little USB sticks in the mail. Let's plug it into the computer at work to see what happens. It's from Ford, what could possibly go wrong?/Iranian tin foil hat

they should have restricted the USB stick mailout to just their authorised dealers and service agents... and then mailshot all the customers with an offer coupon for a discount on a service and also a free software upgrade...

In a world where autos can be thought of as price points for a certain size and feature set (with most comparable models being in the a narrow power/accessories/size/price range).. it makes sense that they'd make the software a value-add way to differenciate themselves.

The experience in my Toyota Prius is similar, the 2004-2009 models come standard with a touch screen, and a lot of the functions center around it (backup camera, sound system, battery monitor, engine diagnostic code and testing). It was som

PERHAPS the fact that the customer is updating the firmware themselves is something new. But as others have pointed-out, car manufacturers have been updating firmware in engine and other onboard computers for years.

Human-Machine Interface Engineer? Not new either. Let me tell you how I turned some line workers into Human-Machine Interface Engineers 30 years ago...

I was working for a small company in Michigan that made measurement and control systems used on automotive assembly lines. We were working on a system for a Bendix axle plant. It read a Brinell (hardness) gauge, and controlled the movement of the part through the station, application of the gauge, good/bad paint spray, etc.

The company was perpetually behind, they had one and a half software people (I was the one - the other was a hardware guy that dabbled), and they didn't want to bother me about this job until I'd finished the prior one. So, I finish up this job and they tell me they've got this new job for me to do, and they're sending me to Ohio the next day on the primary contractor's private plane.

They had the hardware put together. They told the client they were sending two guys to wire-in the system. No software had been written or designed. I didn't even know what it was supposed to do. They briefed me...

We arrive at the plant and the guy we meet starts screaming at us. We were two days late. We didn't KNOW that we were two days late, but we were apparently two days late.

While my co-worker started wiring-in the the box, I set up my Altair (yes, really) on the plant floor next to the line. So, for two weeks, I sat there with this deafening noise designing and writing code. The line was down, of course, and the two workers responsible for it had to stand around twiddling their thumbs.

You haven't felt pressure till you've shown-up at an axle plant two days late to write software on the plant floor from scratch, with the line down, and two monkeys hovering around twiddling their thumbs.

The line workers might have had some light maintenance tasks, but otherwise they didn't have anything to do, so they helped out. Sometimes we need them to operate the equipment, etc.

We had a panel with a small LCD display (a few characters) and a bunch of big, industrial buttons in neat rows and columns. And no design. At all. (OK, I mean, we knew what we needed to do with the gauges and solenoids. We knew the operating sequence of the line. But there was no per-determined UI design.)

So in a leap of faith I ask the guys: "how do you want this to work?" Why not? These were they guys that have to work the machine every day. Who better to do the UI design?

They were delighted. I made the buttons work the way the line workers thought the buttons should work. I made the display show messages that were meaningful to them. It really helped to smooth-over the situation of us arriving late with nothing but a gutless box that did nothing to wire-in...

Consider that the update is being shipped via USB stick. I think there's your answer the car is almost certainly locked against unsigned updates, so the likelihood of it working out well in that case is pretty slim. Especially considering that the only connectivity is likely to be through the USB port rather than WiFi.

If it was WiFi, I'd be wondering how long until somebody figures out how to literally unlock the care via WiFi.

That is easy for just about any modern car out there (3rd party updates). Typically all they do is change out the fuel/air mixture tables and maybe remove a speed governor. I imagine the newer ones (with drive by wire) also undo the awful computer override of your throttle motions (turning your intended throttle stomp into a gentile roll).

Granted most of the ECM updates are to make the motor run _better_ (usually at a slight mileage cost). I'm sure you can find one to make it run even more like shit then

I would hope that they're using cryptographic signing, so that only software updates signed with Ford's private key are able to be installed. It'd still be possible to break this, but very unlikely if it's a strong key.

It would be better having a standard USB charging port than anything that is installed in the car.

While I won't speak for Ford's lack of software prowess, you do realize that you practically get 'USB charging ports' as freebies in your breakfast cereal. I've got a half dozen of the little cigarette lighter plugs with a USB female port and either a red, blue or green LED (take your pick) power light. They come in practically everything with a USB cable these days.